How an obscure 19th Century law is being weaponized against bodily autonomy and abortion rights [View all]

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a case that could restrict nationwide access to mifepristone — one of two drugs used in medication abortions.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone for the medical termination of pregnancy in 2000, a lawsuit filed by the anti-abortion organization Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in November 2022 challenged the longstanding FDA approval and expansions to access that occurred in 2016 and 2021. The good news is that there appears to be a public consensus that the U.S. Supreme Court will dismiss the case on standing, meaning that the justices won’t agree that the organization that brought the case forward had sufficient legal grounds to do so in the first place.

If this happens, access to mifepristone will stay as it is. A Guttmacher Institute report from the Monthly Abortion Provision Study recently found tha medication abortions accounted for nearly 63 percent of all abortions in the United States. However, abortion rights advocates and legal experts are flagging the mention of a 19th century obscenity law called the Comstock Act in the arguments as a potential pathway to what would amount as a nationwide abortion ban.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, conservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas both brought up the Comstock Act. In questioning, Thomas said to a lawyer for Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of mifepristone, that the Comstock Act is "fairly broad, and it specifically covers drugs such as yours." Alito said the Comstock Act is a "prominent provision" and not "some obscure subsection of complicated obscure law."

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/28/how-an-obscure-19th-century-law-is-being-weaponized-against-bodily-autonomy-and-abortion-rights/

If Alito can quote a 17th Century barrister who believed in witches, the Comstock Act comes even easier.